


we're inside out

by dramaticgasp



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:44:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15099911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaticgasp/pseuds/dramaticgasp
Summary: Andrew, close to turning fifteen, is clinically insane.





	we're inside out

Andrew, close to turning fifteen, is clinically insane. 

Sometimes the difference between correlation and causation is indiscernible for an eye across a fenced yard; for this part, you can decide what it most likely is: the red shade on Andrew's knuckles and him whistling while dishwashing. Andrew doesn't mind being a cause, though. There is something appealing in the way dominoes crumble.

_You're making it harder on yourself, Andrew._

The sun is rising from behind a hill, drawing a shadow line midtown, tinting the road orange and glistening off unmowed dewy grass. Blades of grass brushing against Andrew's calves are cold and sticky with wet pollen. Shopping duty is another thing that came with his transfer, but he doesn't mind, he was already awake. He likes the way early morning air spreads in his lungs and the way the colors feel.  
  
He tugs a yoyo into his fist with his middle finger; it's another acquisition from the Juvenile Counseling Center. It's poor recompense, but he takes what he's given. He always sticks his hand out to get a stamp on his wrist.  
  
''Your turn,'' a boy close to his age, older, shoves a stocked plastic bag into his chest. The bag hits Andrew's knee with each step when he takes hold of the handles. The boy turns his cap backwards. Andrew doesn't know his name. He hasn't been paying attention; not everything is worth a tag.  
  
Andrew has never liked math, whatever, but he has calculated that a person costs 15.000 dollars annually.  
  
And there's this, without a line between concession and consequence: the house principal giving him a single room and resting a hand on his shoulder when Andrew passes by; notwithstanding the fact that he keeps cutting crosswords out of newspapers. He'd appreciate it, in a warped reality. Now he thinks, _too late_. Now it's so hilarious it's cutting his bones.  
  
The road curves towards a lake, only visible through the sieve of low-growing trees. Sunlight hasn't yet reached it and a layer of mist is laid above the surface. And this: a head is protruding from the water, fair like the sun, and a body soft and mushy and amiss before it disappears from sight, and Andrew's mind hitches. They're both caught, movement dead, tangled in the string of their locked eyes. The world stills.  
  
Andrew waves and the yoyo hits his hip. The body starts to lift its hand, but then submerges in water.  
  
Andrew thinks: _my reputation precedes me_.  
  
''Who's there?''  
  
''Fish,'' he says, cheerily.  
  
''Okay,'' comes the reply, drawled, with a held-in cough, eyes all a spill of oil; because in Nelson Home, this is a knee-jerk reaction to Andrew, a primary body response; because none of it matters, haven't you heard? Andrew is clinically insane.  


*

At night, the lake turns into a chasm, endless, its opening covered with silk.

Andrew stops with the tips of his shoes touching the water, hands in his pockets and a lollipop melting on his tongue, leaving the artificial taste of strawberries, too sweet. _Propriety_ , he thinks.

Color vision is replaced by black and silver. Andrew feels invisible.

Twigs of larch trees are rustling, the trees that tower over Andrew from behind and encircle the lake. The water is serrated and sharp and uninviting in a moonlit night. The wind tousles his hair and he blinks against his eyes drying.

He starts circling the shore with slow steps, putting one foot in front of the other, heels touching fingertips.

The water stirs and he stills against his reflexes.

He crouches down. He pulls the cotton-candy-colored lollipop out of his mouth and holds it towards the water surface. A body appears underwater, light and swirling and alive. It doesn't move towards the surface, doesn't recoil, and Andrew immerses his lollipop in water, then shrugs when the body doesn't approach him, and puts it back between his lips. A droplet of water drizzles down his fingers and wets his sleeve.

He sits down cross-legged. Tectonic plates cannot be coaxed into drifting; some things happen in their own time. He's good at telling. Waiting, too.

When he was ten, he ran away from a not-that-bad foster family. He doesn't remember why, anymore, unless the feeling of misplacement had a larger shadow back then. In a grocery store, he bought himself three bananas and carbonated water with money taken from a kitchen drawer, then sat around empty corners for six hours, waiting . At closing time, the cashier called the police. Of course. Of course, his too big hoodie failed to cover him. He didn't know what he was waiting for, back then.

And then Cass; he knew exactly what it was.

And then his eyes meet eyes, a fall away, and his mind staggers. It's a mirror image. The reflection is imperfect though; its eyes flustered and shining with attention, shoulder lines stiff with disquiet. Andrew doesn't think he can look like that.

The boy's mouth twitches. ''I shouldn't be here.''

''And yet.'' Andrew draws a spiral on his thigh with a finger, eyes focused. It had been so long since he felt this awake. For once, the edges of his mind feel sharper than his teeth.

''It's just that you–'' The boy's eyes follow the structure of Andrew's face: from the shape of his eyes, down the slope of his nose, across his lips, to the angle of his jaw. Andrew's eyes bore back.

The boy's lips thin for a moment, eyes high voltage. ''Why do you look like me? We're not even–'' his voice trails off. ''How is this possible?''

''You are a product of a nuclear disaster,'' Andrew says. The boy's eyebrows furrow; the boy's, Andrew's; a fucking puzzle; Andrew is intrigued, he is. But he knows the cost can count up to a height so ridiculous not even the first letter of _funny_ would fit before it crumbled down; he knows some things are better off left unexplained.

''Very amusing,'' the boy says.

Andrew doesn't blink, ''I wasn't trying to be.''

He has to sit his mind down, his self-censoring brain senses the level on the Beaufort scale revising upwards. Whirlwinds are a matter of desolation, that's common knowledge.

The boy's eyebrows drop further down. ''Aren't you, I don't know, curious?''

_Andrew, my love, don't be like that. He's almost your age. He wants to meet you, you're his cousin. Aren't you curious if you look alike? He's your family. No, no no. I know, you know I didn't mean it like that, love._

He asks, ''Do you count age in fish years?''

''I'm turning fifteen.''

Andrew skims the moonlit plates of his face. The moon-white neck without spots he was born with himself. ''In a week?''

''You too! Right?'' And it just has to be like this, his freaking body jump and recomposition like caged wonder. ''I knew it. I told you.''

It gets stuck in the air, and the boy looks behind his shoulder with unease, then shifts to his side. A little closer to Andrew.

''Do you live here?'' the boy asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

''Sort of. Do you?''

''Yeah. I–'' he vaguely gestures with a hand, then his face resets. ''Are you mocking me?''

''Not at all.''

Hissing of leaves. Andrew leans back on his arms.

The boy points behind his shoulder. ''I better ...''

''Shoo,'' Andrew says, and watches the boy blend with the darkness of the hungry water.

The boy, whose face is a reprint of Andrew's. Fate, or something.

*

He sits on sharp rock directly by the water and hugs his ankles close to his body, rolling a cigarette between fingers.  
  
Behind him, the dark is insatiable in dense in the way that makes people turn their bedside lamps on. It's uncomfortable and oozes down his arms like shiver, waking nerves in its go. It's repellent and he likes it.  
  
He clears his throat and listens to the silence that follows. He hears the air still. A silence reads like poetry if you know how to read breaks and hear empty lines; and in the dark, sound is both louder and brighter than image.  
  
'' _Mary did you know?_ '' His murmur is raspy. It cuts through the air like wind.  
  
Silences are the ground state of a system. A disturbance as small as a murmur is a bowling ball, and then molecules return to their previous state, and the game is reset, and information about the sound is forgotten. Quantum mechanics doesn't apply to people, he knows, but some things are just the same. People say, people forget; people say, people choose to forget.  
  
'' _That your baby boy would one day walk on water?_ '' Some things are better done than said; cooking, firefighting, promises.  
  
A splash reaches his ears and rebounds off the walls of his skull. It's too dark to locate the movement and he feels a chill ghosting on his skin. When a known silhouette, reversed in its white, closes the distance enough to be seen, he exhales the air he didn't know he has been holding.He sits unmoving while the boy approaches him, slowly. He's calculating risks, but Andrew would hear footsteps. It's a sense of his; sight, smell, a presence behind his back.  
  
''Medusa,'' Andrew greets him.  
  
''My name's Aaron.''  
  
Andrew nods. The boy's mouth twitches. Aaron's. Andrew lets the name melt on the inside of his mouth.  
  
''What's yours?''  
  
He's learning to ignore his mind recalling the taste of A. J. on his tongue. He has never said it, never would. One should not taste explosives. Here's the thing: what do you do with wayward thoughts? Andrew? He ignores them. He is in charge.  
  
''Andrew,'' he says. Cigarette smoke is barely visible, but it reaches his nose regardless and licking his lips tastes bitter. Relying on senses daylight does not require makes him feel wild.  
  
And the pills, they help; not with thought-control, no, but with not minding. They are a white sticker to cover a smudge on a white wall. He hates them, though. They forced the game controller out of his hands.  
  
''You've returned,'' Aaron says, voice casual.  
  
Andrew wordlessly holds his gaze. A fact is a fact.  
  
Aaron drapes his arms across rock surface, skin white against the dark-clothed world. Out of reach. ''Do you go to school here?''  
  
''Sort of,'' Andrew answers. ''Do you?''  
  
Aaron bends his elbows and holds onto his forearms. Assessing the situation. ''We don't talk underwater. Much.''  
  
Andrew sees Aaron react to something passing across his eyes; something that might look like interest. ''No?''  
  
It's like moving wire in a magnetic field; Aaron's eyes catch the spark.  
  
''We go above the surface.'' Because Andrew reads silences, he reads the corner-tight state under Aron's skin; he reads a common thought: information is double-sided, both liberating and a weapon. ''It's more about – contact. Learning by imitation,'' Aaron says. Reluctant. ''What is important doesn't need words.''  
  
He thinks about Cass dragging a finger, scarf soft, around his nostril, where bits of dried blood were smudged, while his name was being spelled into an assortment of criminal records.  
  
He says, ''Not when people are around.''  
  
''Yeah. Guess why.''  
  
Andrew just looks at him. At fine creases lining on his face, disappearing before they fully form. He feels like he's moving chess pieces, and he knows the risk; a knight may jump in from outside of a rook's field of vision. You don't need to be caring to be careful.  
  
Aaron shakes his head at a question Andrew hasn't asked. He propels himself away from the shore. ''I don't know,'' he shakes his head again.  
  
Honestly, the universe never asks as many questions as to how many we don't know the answers.  
  
''Your hair is darker,'' Aaron pipes up. ''Than mine.''  
  
''It's dark.'' Then he inhales: a truth for a truth. ''I can't see well.''  
  
''Oh. You can't?''  
  
He thinks about Aaron: hard eyes and soft mouth and how there's nothing elegant about him. Andrew has walked into a swamp and is still tasting the temperature.  
  
''Air is transparent and people sleep at night,'' he says. ''But you know that.''  
  
Nothing elegant about him, and this is purity, this is humaneness that's never overused. This complexity is simple.  
  


*

On his birthday, an envelope rests on his bedside table, the sender's address reading The Spear Family with meticulous handwriting. He is supposed to talk about it on a session, and he does: ''Ah, this,'' a grin pulls at his cheeks. He sings himself Happy Birthday and talks about his favored cake flavor. He takes a brightly-wrapped candy from the bowl on the coffee table because he believes in reciprocity.

*

After six days, a figure is leaning on rising grassy lakeshore when Andrew gets there. It starts when it sees Andrew approaching, but then drops its shoulders. Andrew stops. The moon is bright above razor-edged conifer tops. Aaron's back remains straightened. After six days, the bruises on Aaron's nose and mouth are fading to something soft.

And Andrew thinks he understands the bootblack shine in his eyes, and feels something in his nerves reshape.

He slowly sits down, out of a spruce's shadow; the message is clear for those who know. Soil and needles roll under his palms and crush against rock.

''I shouldn't be here,'' Aaron says; again.

''Come closer,'' A tentacle rises and falls back in water. Aaron doesn't move. Andrew looks at him boredly, ''Come closer.''

Aaron does. A rock darkens under his fingers and glints where water drizzles off his arms. Quiet spreads and weighs down air. His eyes are scanning Andrews's face, eyes lingering bellow a corner of his mouth where his own face is bruised.

''It was–''

''An accident?'' Andrew interrupts. ''I don't like liars.''

''I wasn't going to say that.''

For an outer eye, bruised skin is nothing out of ordinary for boys like Andrew. Worn-out lawn and a do-it-yourself basketball case are best to side-eye and leave it at that, because otherwise you'd be breaking the neighbourhood rules of ever-present greetings, otherwise you'd become involved.

But another story's out in the open for those who know: Andrew is fifteen and wears long sleeves on summer days and has a paper clip on a shoelace tied around his wrist. House rules forbid room locking, but he isn't stupid. He learnt to lockpick on the third day after his transfer.

Aaron exhales at the quiet. ''Andrew.''

Years back, when he spent a summer surrounded by the dry air of south Georgia and its feet-burning pavement, watching heat rising off roads, he lived with an amateur car constructor with a bare-bulp-lit garage with too many calendars. He took two wrenches out of a toolbox; one to put in his bedside drawer and another, smaller, that fit in his boot. The summer ended before he had to use either.

''Whoa.''

Andrew shoots up. His first-day roommate is standing mouth-parted between bushes where Andrew came from. In the group home, he has been hard not to notice; he needed stitches after trying to cut his front hair without a mirror.

Something flames up his body. He doesn't care, he tells himself.

''Andrew.'' Horror is reflecting off Aaron's eyes. Andrews's veins pulse. This – one word–

–not feeling; it's the intoxicating whiff of a summer night; the pills a heavy liquid and his brain light from buoyancy. He's drunk on either, on both.

''Don't run.'' He doesn't feel – this is a shadow of feeling inversed. He grins. Legs are funny.

The newcomer glances behind his shoulder, then fixes his eyes back on Aaron.

''Are you seeing what I'm seeing?'' he speaks without looking at Andrew. ''That's some Disney shit. Just uglier. Some – hey, Ariel. Minyard. ''

Andrew erases the grin off his face and puts on a serious expression. ''Did you follow me?''

''Are you surprised?''

''I shouldn't be. I should have known a hatchling can't tell when flying out of its nest will break its neck.''

He snorts. ''Says you. You think you can do anything, don't you?''

Andrew laughs. It cracks the night. He sees a head shaking with – disbelief, maybe.

A phone is pulled out of a back pocket. ''You've been coming here all this time, uh? I need to document this.'' The screen illuminates his face, something about it racing. ''They'll think it's photoshopped.''

''Andrew.'' Aaron's voice is concrete now.

''Does it sing?'' He turns the flashlight on and Aaron covers his face. Andrew steps in his front, chests a closed fist away, eyes blind from the light, light exploding in his head.

''Hey, Zachariel. Turn it off.'' He's not in the mood to ask. ''Your appearance reminds me of how alike we are in being imbalanced youths. Crazy, huh? Quite literally. Whacked out. Been told batshit youth is unfit to contribute to the society as independent individuals. At least – hey, guess what? We're all in this together.''

The phone gets lowered but Andrew's vision is still a flock of floaty pecks. He blinks to adjust.

''It's Zachary, Joseph.'' He pushes Andrew's chest and shoulder and moves past him. Andrew's vision has adjusted; it's a countdown. He licks his lips. He has a record.

''Hey, squid. Do you understand me?'' He looks at Andrew but doesn't wait for an answer and turns back towards Aaron. ''Mind posing for a portrait?''

He's a few steps from Aaron and Andrew's body tunes into a formation of taut muscles. Aaron is still there. Andrew doesn't understand people.

The ex-roommate squints into the screen. ''My god. I see it now.'' He looks up. ''What are you two?''

A tentacle rises, second in, second out, and knocks the phone to the floor. The light dies. A cold spray hits Andrew's face and he slowly licks it off his lips, tasting staleness and threat.

He has retreated and is holding his wrist, eyes wide. ''My phone. Fuck you. Both, fuck you both.''

He moves to pick up his phone but Aaron's faster; the boy jerks back while Aaron flings it in the lake. He's still, mouth open, and his face is earthquaking.

Andrew crouches down and sticks a hand underwater, closing a fist around a tuft of slimy leaves, black in the dark. ''Compensation in algae money,'' he's turning and holding it out and sees the ex-roommate throw a stone in Aaron's direction, and he moves before noting where it lands.

He doesn't think, and an arm is twisted against his chest, body bent, ligaments straining not to tear.

''Hey, hey, shh. Do you want your hand back?'' The arm tugs, but it's nothing against the fire in Andrew's head.

The ex-roommate speaks through his teeth, the wheeze of it mooring in Andrew's gut. ''I'm leaving next week. Let go. Psycho. Let go, right now, or I promise you'll have your parole ended.''

Andrew pushes him and flattens his tone, '''A youth with a criminal record is free to leave an organisation providing residential youth care services as soon as they are no longer in need of supervision or treatment and they do not express unjustifiable aggression.'''

The ex-roomate shakes his head and straightens his jacket. ''I wasn't wrong. Remember?'' He gestures at something. ''Stay out of my room.''

Andrew lights a cigarette. ''Stay inside yours.''

The boy picks up a coke can from behind a trunk and swings it towards the lake, its content drawing an arc and splattering on the grass just before the edge of the water.

''Fuck you,'' Aaron growls, fingers dug in soil.

The boy halts and huffs in incredulity. ''What are you?'' he asks, body turned to Aaron but eyes on Andrew. Not important enough to be answered, though. Smoke from Andrew's exhale veils his face.

The boy is gone. Andrew tramples the can and picks it up.

Aaron covers his eyes with the heels of his palms. ''Fuck. Nice, Andrew, really fucking nice. Oh my god. I'm – I fucked up.''

His voice is crumbly like a house of cards. Andrew sees Aaron's reaction turning inside out and remembers some wounds don't bleed right off.

''Will he tell?'' Aaron asks.

Andrew thinks about the brittle ground they're standing on, everybody under the home name, where every misplaced step could lead to breakage, where balance is pivotal. Nobody would want to slip. To appear imbalanced.

''Probably not,'' he says. ''I'm not a prophet.'' He draws nearer and crouches down, reaching out, and Aaron flinches back.

_I'm taller than you! Hello! Come here. Oh, hm, sorry. I just– I just wanted to– never mind, I didn't mean to. Sorry. Sorry. You can leave your shoes here._

And Andrew's standing up and brushing needles off his shorts, shaking the crumpled can. ''Can you babysit yourself?''

In front of him, shoulders rise higher, offence and confusion trickling down the curve of clavicles.

''Aaron,'' he warns, pointed like a dart.

Aaron shakes his head, eyes unlocked, emotions wordless. ''Yeah.''

Andrew leaves.

*

Next morning, dark with rain, he walks to the lake off meds. By two hours of sitting on the shore, wet clothes don't feel uncomfortable anymore. He throws stones in water, too sharp to skip across the surface. By two hours of sitting with legs dangling underwater, his skin is warmer where it's sunken.

He starts pushing himself up when a hand closes around his ankle.

''It's daytime,'' Aaron says.

''Take this.'' Andrew holds a knife for Aaron to take and Aaron's hand closes around the handle. He blinks, mouth opening, then lets go. His hand sinks under the surface. To cool the burn. The knife clinks when it hits rock.

''What? No. No, no,'' Aaron says. Andrew thinks their pulses match. ''It's not like that,'' he says then, voice low. Pause. His jaw clenches. ''You know it isn't true. What he said about you last night.'' Doesn't make it a question.

''Stop deflecting.''

''Me or you?''

''Aaron. Ignorance is a choice,'' Andrew tells him. ''Don't you know?''

''No,'' Aaron says, and looks away.

Andrew doesn't like liars, and he would be lying if he said he didn't know the pull in a direction that doesn't feel so thick in his brain, sticking to and swallowing every nerve. Once you keep a jar for so long, you need to label it, eventually, and sometimes it's a waste of space. But he came here. He gave what he knows to give. He's willing to help Aaron clear his shelf.

''I meant it.'' Aaron blurts it out like he shouldn't, like it'd burn his mouth if he kept it in longer.

''A reflection shouldn't have opinions,'' Andrew tells him.

''I'm not–'' Aaron frowns, then settles for glaring, then averts his eyes, too yellow to be honey-colored.

And something in Andrew tilts. Because it isn't Aaron's narrowed eyes asking _what is your reality_ , it isn't him turning from the answer. It's Aaron seeing his coat of lacquer; not beneath, but it's enough.

It seems that he needs to drive on a slick surface to reach the end of the line. Or try to. A truth for a truth.

''I left,'' he says.

Understanding is not something he wants to see, so he doesn't look. A water-sharpened pebble imprints itself into the skin of his fist. He clenches it at full tilt, with heart-shattering, thought-blanking force, until his arm starts to tremble.

''And came here?'' Aaron asks.

''Here. Greenville. Florence. No place that mattered.'' He sees the deliberate way Aaron doesn't react.

Silence. Aaron grabs a fistfull of dirt and they both watch it dissipate in water. They are good at supplementing each other's quietude. There's knowledge in their unknowing.

He doesn't get asked: what happened? Doesn't get asked: what about your family? Did they do this? He doesn't know how to feel about it, so he doesn't at all.

Aaron clears his throat. ''It's not the same. I can't move from here.''

''Because you breathe with gills?''

''Lungs, too. It's skin,'' he stops like he has explained it. His eyebrows twitch when Andrew just hold his gaze. ''We'd overheat. We can't cool by evaporation, we don't have sweat glands. Like you.''

Once upon a time, he sat in a bathtub, hot water seeping through his skin until the temperatures evened and he didn't know the time anymore. Once upon a time, his body would tremble to warm up, but his skin would be clammy with sweat.

''Newsflash,'' Andrew says, ''evolution cares less than you do.''

Aaron's eyes are cast down and he looks fixed on a thought. With a short exhale, he looks up.

''Will you come back?'' His voice is clotted, sticking to his throat; the strange want is thirst that dried his throat and dried his voice. He sounds like he doesn't want to cross the safety border of quiet, and at the same time, like he's itching to pour his insides out, for Andrew.

Andrew extends his hand, pale in moonlight, between them and it's a warning sign for people to evacuate before a flood. When Aaron doesn't draw back, Andrew brings his hand to the back of Aaron's head and tangles his fingers in wet hair. He bends his fingers and pulls until their cheeks are a curse word apart. The shape of his breath is warming up Aaron's skin.

''I promise,'' he says, clear as the surface that is spread before him.

*

If the first time guessing didn't indulge you properly, let's have another try: times Andrew violated his conditional release and times he was transferred.

The white noise of the wind from his open window is drowning out the life of the dining compartment. The skin of his forehead is cold where it rests against glass. Window view is a current of colors. It's all a glitch. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine he's nowhere.

A cup of coffee is put before him.

''Thank you, thank you. I'm enjoying my ride. Is there a customer feedback form?'' The spoon is hot against his tongue when he sticks it in his mouth. ''Another sugar, maybe? I've been told I drain a lot of energy, but I don't think I care. Very kind of you, Madam.'' He extends a palm and glazes it with an all-teeth smile, all jewel glint.

Her fingertips are without temperature when they drop a packet in his hand; skin on skin, blood on blood; he's reminded that even base quantities are relative. In another context, that's easy to forget. He feels overperceptive, and it's the pills, it's the pills, because when he wants to be, when he can, he's a clean knife. Not something to mess with. Right now, he's a mix of all colors.

''No problem. We collect instant feedback on the website.'' She hooks a lock of hair behind her ear. ''We'll ask you to close the window. You understand. Thank you.''

He does. He drinks his coffee. His body is more awake than he is. He's awake he's awake he's awake, but his head is a cloud. A roller coaster drive. A free fall.

 _Look, Andrew. I'm sorry you don't have somebody else to tell you this. You can't always have what you want_ , the house head told him. _You need to adjust sometimes_.

Take a breath. Andrew knows he's a sealed chest. He shifts the structural arrangement of his being so he fits through every crevice to get to the other side. Of course not everybody knows it, what happens inside a body stays inside a body. When you can just walk away, perhaps you should. When you fling a stone, perhaps it doesn't matter where it lands. Just walk away, don't waste your breath, don't tire yourself.

This is where we are now. A paperback copy of Jane Eyre is resting against Andrew's high-drawn knees and he's sketching on the first page; a sky covered with suns. Each circle sticks closer to its definition. Another reminder, but this one something new: not every repetition is a mistake.

Maybe it was worth it, maybe it wasn't, but something has unraveled when he was able to locate the pillars of his mind's territory: the pull inside him, the one that contracts his stomach, isn't a side effect. Aaron and his stupid marvel-eyes concealed under a frown. His stupid talk-before-thinking mouth. This stupid _feeling_ in Andrew's core.

But maybe he can live with that. It's a little bit like gravity, he thinks. It's like he can feel his legs meet ground. Flying at great altitudes wears his bones.

He feels in charge, this time.

And this, it isn't breaking a word. Andrew is clinically insane, but the concept isn't difficult: a promise is a fucking promise. He will be back.

*

_Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?_

  


**Author's Note:**

> my pals, my dudes, if you read this, take a minute to leave a comment and feed my soul PLS BUDDIES COMMENT
> 
> how did you feel reading?


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